Ooo, it’s all sticky!

May 23, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

April showers bring May flowers. May showers bring puddles.

That was Eddie Izzard talking about landing on the moon only to find it was covered in jam, but he could have been talking about Bibleburg. Except Bibleburg is more squishy than sticky, and if there were any jam lying about, the rain of the past few days would’ve washed it away, so no. Sticky? Not so much. Squishy, that’s the thing. There. Glad we’ve got that sorted out.

This would be fine weather if I were a duck, but since I’m more of a dick it’s not doing much for me. Or for the Turk’, either. I just heard a loud thunk from the living room and went in to see him affixed to the top half of the screen door, forepaws spread wide, like an inmate clutching the cell bars. “Hey, y’dirty screw, call m’lawyer! I’m innocent, I tell ya! Lemme outa here!” If the Turk’ had a spoon and opposable thumbs, he’d be digging a tunnel in a blind corner somewhere.

Speaking of prisons, The New York Times recently paid a call on Cañon City and Florence to sample public opinion about sprinkling Gitmo inmates around the various local graybar hotels. One dingbat who owns a coffee shop fears an influx of Muslims and terrorists that would drive down property values for “good Christian conservatives” like himself. Never mind that property values have already taken quite a beating from the good Christian conservatives running the country and its financial system for the past eight years.

No, by all means let’s reserve our correctional system for fine upstanding American nutbags, like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who enjoys three hots and a cot in the federal Supermax at Florence. At least they won’t hate our freedom, despite having none of their own.

Thumb and thumber

April 30, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

Y’know, it’s really pointless trying to write funny stuff for money when there’s so much hysterical free stuff already out there. Satire is a very poor second to the real deal. Case in point: Texts From Last Night. Some examples:

(859): im in a kiddie pool, high, with a keg in arms reach. If i had a sandwich and a blowjob this would be the best day ever

(312): I’m peeing chunks and puking liquid. Did I at least have fun last night?

(610): Where did you get a picture of my penis

(201): whoever gets the blood i just donated is getting a shit ton of free thc

Thanks and a big thumbs up to The Aristocrats.

What, no salsa?

April 25, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Wait a moment — did I leave the gas on? No! I'm a fuckin' squirrel! — Did I leave the gas on? No! No, I'm a fuckin' squirrel!

Is that Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn.? Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.? Pat Buchanan? Nope — it’s Blondie the squirrel, enjoying a healthy organic corn chip taken straight from the dainty hand of Herself, who also snapped the pic. “Fucking nuts!” he seems to say. “Fed up with them always. I long for a grapefruit.”

Squirrels are said to live from six to 10 years, so Blondie, like me, must be a geezer. He’s been panhandling the neighborhood since we moved in seven years ago and is absolutely fearless — he’ll stroll right up to you like a Bibleburg wino hunting a handout.

If you’re a Bibleburger into squirrels, organic chips and other such tree-huggery, don’t miss today’s Pikes Peak Earth Day extravaganza at Cornerstone Arts Center. Blondie won’t be there, but you should be.

Earth Day

April 22, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

This being Earth Day, I thought I’d ride on some. Poked a sharp stick at a few colleagues confined to their respective cages and rolled away. The legs, as Chris Horner might say, were not good, so I thought I’d take a little light exercise in Palmer Park. So, apparently, did everyone else.

Oddly, it was a pleasant outing, despite the crowds. Without exception, everyone I encountered was just happy to be there — a pair of women cyclists battling a balky derailleur, a lone horseman, various dog-walkers, a couple of strolling teens, a mountain biker taking a wrong line into oncoming traffic (me).

I was on a mountain bike, too, and enjoyed something not unlike zazen on two wheels until the drivetrain started acting up after about 90 minutes. My right-hand Sachs twist-shifter had finally gone to its reward after 15 or so years, so I manhandled it into a cog I could live with and rolled it on home.

After a snack I chucked the bike in the back of the White Tornado (another of the various beaters infesting the DogHaus) and headed for Old Town Bike Shop, where a crowd of mechanics gathered around the ailing two-wheeler like surgeons in an operating theater. As they marveled at the geezer-mobile, discussing repairs, workarounds and replacements, I was reminded of a scene from “The Milagro Beanfield War” by John Nichols:

But finally, at 76, there loomed on Amarante’s horizon a Waterloo. Doc Gómez in the clinic at Doña Luz sent him to a doctor at the Chamisaville Holy Cross Hospital who did a physical, took X-rays, shook his head, and sent the old man to St. Claire’s in the capital where a stomach specialist, after doing a number of tests and barium X-rays and so forth, came to the conclusion that just about everything below Amarante’s neck had to go, and the various family members were notified.

I had been thinking in terms of a similarly radical intervention, perhaps a pair of Shimano bar-cons mated to Paul’s Thumbies, or (gasp) an upgrade to nine-speed. Happily, like Amarante, the old DBR Axis TT has defied the Grim Reaper and rolls on, thanks to a quick and inexpensive Grip Shift transplant. Chapeau to the OTBS folks.

Mad as hatters

April 15, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

"It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!"

“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I wonder what he would have made of the Tea Baggers. Short work, I expect. The Bibleburg Gaslight blessed our local wingnut festival with a live blog; I trust its editors will do likewise next time the lefties hold a peace rally. No word on whether the head count included the usual random assortment of winos, street musicians, homeless people, cops and Palmer High School stoners.

Meanwhile, like the good citizens we are, Herself and I laid a big, wet, four-figure smooch on our beloved Uncle Sammy today. We’ll probably both come down with herpes. At the very least we’ve contracted a temporary ailment that leaves one’s bank account as empty as a Tea Bagger’s skull. These pootbutts probably think Jesus does potholes, police work and snow removal whenever he’s not busy doing his legendary loaves-and-fishes thing.

Speaking of snow, it’s in the forecast again, and this storm is supposed to be a whopper. The last one was perfect — just a few heavy, wet inches that really perked up the lawn and trees — but this time the wise guys are calling for six inches to a foot over the next few days.

The Safeway of the Living Dead must look like George Romero Meets Cecil B. DeMille tonight. I have a pantry full of beans, rice, pasta and canned goods, so I’m unconcerned. Plus there are the firearms in case we crave a little long pig. A couple of our neighbors would not be missed, among them the dipshit NASCAR wanna-be who keeps racing the poorly tuned engine in his shitbox street racer and doing noisy laps around the block.

But he’s definitely a feedlot critter, the furthest thing in the world from free-range organic. Maybe I’ll just use him to sight in the Mini-Thirty, then go hunting Trustafarians at Colorado College. They’re pre-marinated and everything.